Blood and Light
by Optimatum
Summary: In a world with no humans, products of human experimentation are often looked down upon. That is the case of black-colored Ralts Blood, ostracized by all except his friend Light. But when the humans take Blood back, Light must find a way to get him back.
1. Prologue: hollow dream

Prologue - hollow dream

* * *

I had a dream.

A dream about a memory.

Four years ago, on a cold summer afternoon

I was dying.

I could hear the crumpling of leaves beneath me as I dragged my bloodied body across the forest floor.

It was cold.

So cold.

So painful.

And yet, I continued moving, like a brush slowly painting the ground a dark red.

And, suddenly, I hear a sound.

A sound that was not the crunch of dried leaves.

A voice.

I looked up, and a lone Ralts stood above me.

He was silhouetted against the bright, afternoon sun.

Bathed in its light,

on that cold summer afternoon,

the Ralts saved me from death.

* * *

A/N: Considerably short, but this prologue has been rewritten five times already. Few things to note about this fic:

* Perspectives may change between chapters. I will not explain whose perspective it is from, as it is fairly easy to tell.

* I will try to keep updates bimonthly. Not to worry, though, I will release Chapter One three hours after this chapter. It will be the same for all chapters with word counts of less than 500.

* Yes, this is a Pokemon fic where Pokemon talk. Wait, no. Not only do they talk, but they've intelligence on the level of humans. And humans don't exactly exist in this fic. If you don't like that kind of fic, well, sorry. But I do encourage you to try reading it anyway.

* Pokemon does not belong to me. Any and all similarities to any real life people, Pokemon, aliens, historical figures, buildings, geographical locations, animals or lamps, living or dead, is purely intentional and I will take no responsibility. All lefts reserved.

* 75% of all statistics in the author's notes, or any part of the fic, are purely fictional and completely made up.

* The author notes on this are longer than the actual chapter.


	2. Dawn of the First Day: cold summer

Dawn of the First Day - cold summer

* * *

I woke up feeling fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I didn't even know why, I just felt fantastically fantastic. But enough about that.

"Mornin' dad!" I yelled, rushing down the stairs. The stairs creaked rather loudly, but not too much seeing as I skipped every other step. I eventually just gave up and just leaped from the fourth step down to the ground, landing with quite the thud.

"Careful there!" my dad exclaimed.

"I'm fine!" I assured, rushing past the dining table and bursting out the door.

"Don't forget your breakfast!" he shouted.

"I didn't!" I answered at an equally loud volume. A sandwich materialized in my hand almost immediately as I said so. See, the ability to teleport external objects was an ability exclusive to me. I was incapable of teleporting myself around, unlike the other Kirlia around me, but I made up for it with just that.

Of course, there's one more thing which separated me from the other Kirlia.

Those other Kirlia are green in color. But me? I'm blue.

That's right. I'm the one out of over eight thousand Kirlia. I'm a shiny Kirlia.

With that being said, however, I wasn't the only exclusively colored Pokemon in our quaint little village.

"Where is the school again?" I grumbled to myself, arriving at an intersection. "Um...it was..."

"Ignore the first intersection, turn right at the fork in the path and cut through Old Man Jerome's house...without his permission, naturally," came the reply. "Never one for directions now, are you, Light?"

The voice could only belong to one person.

"Good morning, Blood," I greeted as I turned around. "Good to see you're cheerful today."

The black colored Kirlia waved at me nonchalantly in response. You read that right. Black colored. Well, not all black colored. He had blood red fins on his head, and his skin was a dull grey. A true one of a kind Kirlia.

There was just one problem about being too special.

"What can I say? It's good to be ali-" Blood's response was cut off short as a peanut butter sandwich bulleted into the back of his head, throwing him facefirst onto the ground. I looked up, and saw two regularly colored Kirlia laughing away.

"Boom, headshot!" one of them declared.

"EAT that!" another one yelled.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" they both screamed in unison, shaking their fists in the air.

"...come on, Blood, let's get out of here," I murmured, helping my now-silent friend up. "Cut through Old Man Jerome's house, you said?"

There was no response.

Blood was knocked clean out.

._.

Blood was surprisingly heavy. I would have complained about how he should have woken up earlier, but the fact of the matter was, I didn't have the right to. He was the one who had to go through that each day. Well, not the fainting part. That part was new.

"Ugh...where am I?" he mumbled, stirring.

"Right outside Old Man Jerome's, sleepyhead," I replied. "Now wake up proper. It's hard to sneak past him when carrying someone ten times heavier than you."

"I'm not...that heavy, am I?" he chuckled. I didn't understand how he could still joke after getting hit by that sandwich, but he was probably burying that emotion to prevent himself from hurting anyone. The best reason I could think of for doing that was that he didn't want any more hate that he already...commanded. "Come on, I'll go in first, you follow my lead." With that, he hopped over the wooden fence, which had long fallen into disrepair.

One more thing.

Blood can't teleport.

I jumped over the fence, landing softly on the overgrown lawn. The old Gallade who owned the property slept soundly on the carpet. I never really knew why he chose to sleep outside instead of inside, but he slept so soundly, it didn't make a difference to our chances of success.

"Almost there," Blood whispered. I nodded, and the two of us slowly inched our way through the lawn. Eternity seemed to pass before we arrived at the other end of the fence, which was as well maintained as the other one. Which would be...not at all, actually.

Blood hopped over the fence with ease, proof of the many times that we had done this specific action. I grabbed ahold of the fence to throw myself over, but just as I lifted myself completely off the air, it collapsed, causing me to lose my balance and come crashing to the ground.

In retrospect, jumping over a broken old fence probably wasn't the safest idea anyway.

"Crap!" Blood gasped. I looked up, and Old Man Jerome was wide awake. He seemed startled at first, but his eyes quickly focused on me.

My body froze.

A deafening silence passed between the two of us. My body forced me to stare into the empty black beads that were his eyes. His mouth began to move, and he said words. At first, I could not hear what he was saying.

But finally,

I could make out the last sentence that escaped his mouth.

"Prepare for unforeseen consequences."

And then

He fell back asleep.

"...oh, thank Arceus he's still asleep," Blood muttered, grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me up. I was too dazed to notice what he had said, too dazed to feel him dragging me across the path and into the school's land, and too dazed to hear his complaints.

It would be more accurate to replace "dazed" with "unconscious".

* * *

A/N: This first chapter has been rewritten many many times. It originally involved the introduction of the top student, but that has been postponed to the next chapter. And yes, I did steal that from Majora's Mask. And yes, that line was stolen from Half Life 2.

So, any reviews, people?


	3. Noon of the First Day: clockwork

Noon of the First Day

clockwork

* * *

A long time ago, on a cold summer afternoon. It was cold, so cold. That was the day I rescued him, wasn't it? How could I forget, when he looked up at me and whispered "Help".

"Light?" A voice. A voice choked with worry. "Light? Wake up, Light! Come on, don't tell me I killed you..."

"Heh, don't worry about me," I smiled. I heard a sigh of relief as I forced my eyes open. Blood was staring down at me, his eyes shining with tears of relief. "How long was I out?"

"Long enough," he replied. "About five minutes."

"Doesn't sound too bad," I laughed, getting up. Immediately, dizziness assailed me like a swarm of bees. I felt myself stumble backwards, right into another student. "Ow!"

The unfortunate Kirlia and I crashed to the floor in a heap. On the bright side, it did relieve me of my dizzy spell.

"Honestly..." I heard a voice sigh in exasperation. "You two again?" I turned around to see whose lap I had conveniently fallen into, only to come into eye contact with her. She shot a dirty look at me. "Get. Off me," she coldly ordered.

I just sat there, gaping like an idiotic Magikarp.

She gave up and pushed me off. As she got up, she glanced back at me, and haughtily spat,

"Watch where you're going next time."

She spun around elegantly and strutted towards the school.

"Ow, cold burn right there," Blood chuckled, holding out his hand to help me up. I was completely dazed, just staring after her. "You won't get her just by staring at her, you know that?" I still continued to stare. Suddenly, I felt a hard slap right across my right cheek.

"Ow ow ow!" I reacted immediately. "What the hell was that for?"

"No reason," Blood sighed, shaking his head as if disappointed. As if in response to his reply, a white fist flew from the side of our visions, impacting Blood on the cheek. He flew through the air, but like a Glameow, he landed lightly on his limbs. He glared at the Kirlia who had dealt the damage, and yelled "What the hell was that for?"

"No reason!" the Kirlia retorted. "How dare you attack Light like that?"

"It's cool, it didn't hurt too much," I began, but was cut off as Blood cleared the gap between he and the Kirlia, and in a single roundhouse kick, brought him to his knees. "Hey, watch it!"

"Why you..." the Kirlia grunted, getting to his knees. He threw himself at Blood, and the two rolled across the ground. It was hard to tell who was winning, but I couldn't hear much coming from Blood. Eventually, the green Kirlia tore away from his enemy, covered in scratches and cuts, while Blood merely rose from the ground, very untouched. "You're...good..."

"Best in the school," Blood smirked. "Ready for round two?"

"Ha, but you forget one thing..." he smiled. Blood sarcastically pulled a surprised face, as he waited for the Kirlia to explain. "Here at this school, we're trained to use Special Attacks! Confusion!" Multicolor waves began to emit from the two fins upon the Kirlia's head, resounding through the air. It was, to put it simply, screeching to listen to.

But Blood was completely unaffected, as he tore through the air, one black claw outstretched and ready to strike.

The pair flew through the field like a missile, crashing into a wall and causing a cloud of dust.

"Attention, students, if you would please report to the hall for an extremely...important announcement..." a voice announced. It was Professor Vance Doffer.

"Come on, Blood, let's go," I said, running up to the pair. Blood was kneeling over the unconscious body of the Kirlia, checking for his vital signs. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

"No, he's alive," Blood assured. "He's breathing." He got up and looked around. "Light, you can go on ahead. I'll take him to the infirmary to treat his wounds."

"You truly are a good guy, aren't you?" I sighed. But that was just the kind of guy Blood was. He would never kill anyone, despite all their hatred, despite all their disdain. "I'll do as you say. Just don't take too long."

"I'll only take a minute," he assured. He held the fainted Kirlia in his arms and ran off at a ridiculously fast pace. As he disappeared from my view, I began ascending the steps leading to the hall.

The hall was literally packed with students, a seemingly unending sea of green. Not a single black Kirlia in sight. I chose to stand far at the back, near the entrance nearest to the infirmary, and stared blankly into the ceiling as I waited for the Professor to give the announcement.

"Ahem," the Professor coughed. I looked at the stage, and there he was, elderly Gallade with the monocle, pacing back and forth on the stage. "May I have your attention please?"

Never did I expect the situation to degrade as much as it did.

"I have called for your attention because of a letter I have received. It is important that I remind you right now the purpose for which this school was built. It is to equip you with the tools that you can use to defend your family, and more importantly, defend our village, and not to have meaningless brawls on grounds which the public can observe us from."

The professor paused, and picked up an envelope from the podium. He slowly opened it, and took out the letter inside. That too, he slowly opened it. He was being too cautious for something that was a mere letter.

"'Look'..." the Professor muttered, peering at the piece of paper. "...'up'?"

And with that., the ceiling collapsed on him. The audience erupted into a mass of screams and swears. I kept my eyes locked on the stage.

Atop the rubble was a black creature with a smile that was like the distorted reflection of the crescent moon on a cracked mirror. His eyes were light blue, a stark contrast to the dark colors that made up the rest of his body. A red mane tipped with black that reached down to his knees and a bipedal form that was hunched over more than Professor Doffer himself. In its right claw, it held a dead Kirlia, its corpse covered in numerous red scratches and cuts.

Its colors reminded me too much of a certain black Kirlia.

"Ah..." it hissed, locking his eyes on me. "Light..." The creature walked towards me, crushing the head and spraying blood across the floor of the hall. "I've been looking for you..."

"W...who are you?" I asked. He stopped in front of me, and smiled widely. And with that, he faded into the air.

To put it more accurately, my vision faded to black.

I really should stop doing that.

* * *

A/N: I don't think I really nailed it with this version, but it's better than the other two revisions I've had before this. This fic was first concepted around three years ago, so you can probably tell that Zoroark is a very new addition to the formula.


End file.
